Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

A new edition of Adrian Lewis’ terrific study of ‘The American Culture of War’: The advent of our wars without our people

The Best Defense mailbag brings a happy surprise: A new edition of Adrian Lewis’ illuminating history of the modern American military. I’ve blogged about the previous edition, but was quite struck by this sentence near the end of the new edition: “The most significant development in the conduct of war in the 20th century was ...

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628667_120423_0_ricks2.jpg

The Best Defense mailbag brings a happy surprise: A new edition of Adrian Lewis' illuminating history of the modern American military. I've blogged about the previous edition, but was quite struck by this sentence near the end of the new edition: "The most significant development in the conduct of war in the 20th century was the elimination of the American people from the conduct of the wars of the United States."

The Best Defense mailbag brings a happy surprise: A new edition of Adrian Lewis’ illuminating history of the modern American military. I’ve blogged about the previous edition, but was quite struck by this sentence near the end of the new edition: “The most significant development in the conduct of war in the 20th century was the elimination of the American people from the conduct of the wars of the United States.”

As is typical of Lewis’ terse style, that is a sentence brimming with meaning that bears re-reading a few times. I suspect he is correct, I think that this is a bad development, and that we should discuss how to re-connect the American people to the wars fought in their name.

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1
Tags: Military, North America

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